Question of the Day

Should the Electoral College be abolished?

Aside from being really, really good, hitching your name to a popular opening may be the surest path to chess immortality.

Neither British player Horatio Caro nor Austrian Marcus Kann ever won a tournament of note, but an 1886 article they co-authored in a German journal on a certain Black defensive scheme (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5) has indelibly linked them as the pioneers of the Caro-Kann Defense.

German Max Lange was a decent player, writer and problem composer in the late 1800s, but he is remembered for the eponymous attacking line he formulated in the Giuoco Piano. Pittsburgh amateur John Lindsay McCutcheon punched his ticket to fame when he used his pet French Defense line to defeat world champion Wilhelm Steinitz in an 1885 simultaneous exhibition.

With opening theory having become such a developed science, it is harder and harder to attach your name to a full-blown opening system. Hungarian-born U.S. GM Pal Benko may be one of the last to stake such a claim with his investigations into the gambit line in the Benoni Defense that popularly bears his name.

However, GM Alexander Morozevich, who is both good and original, may be making a name for himself with his revival of a lightly regarded Queen’s Gambit line once favored by his great Russian predecessor, Mikhail Chigorin.

In his new book, “The Chigorin Defense, According to Morozevich” (New in Chess, 236 pp., $28.95), co-written by IM Vladimir Barskij, Morozevich recounts his adventures in the line (1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6!?) against some of the world’s top players when he revived the Chigorin in the early 1990s.

The book’s best feature: Morozevich’s modesty. Unlike some opening manuals, Morozevich makes no outlandish claims for his pet variation, and the book’s 74 games include a healthy dose of Black losses. He gives both the line’s pluses — open piece play, surprise value — and its drawbacks — lack of central control and, often, the loss of at least one bishop.

The book’s main drawback: Too many of the games are drawn from rapid and blitz play, with a correspondingly high number of time-induced oversights. A slimmer selection of well-played games might have improved the overall production.

We have one game each from the pioneer and the pupil today, both with annotations based heavily on the book.

Chigorin was known as a Romantic swashbuckler, favoring bold tactics to the “scientific” ideas of Steinitz and other moderns. However, his win over German master Richard Teichmann at the great 1904 Cambridge Springs tournament is a model of subtle positional play, highly praised by Soviet world champion Mikhail Botvinnik.

Morozevich is not a big fan of White’s line here (4. cxd5 Bxf3 5. dxc6 Bxc6), as Black gets good piece play and preserves his bishop. The star move is Black’s 14. 0-0-0 Bxc3 15. bxc3 (see diagram) b5!, preserving the knight’s post on d5 and preparing a lightning redeployment to the queen-side. Botvinnik notes that White’s biggest headache is his “strong” bishop on e5, which is rendered irrelevant by Chigorin’s strategy.

The finale: 23…Nc5! 24. Qb1 (Bb1 Nb3! wins the queen) Nxd3 25. Qxd3 Qxa2+ 26. Kf3 Bc2!, and the White queen has no place to hide from the coming 27…Be5+; Teichmann resigned.

Morozevich’s own win with the Chigorin over Russian GM Vladimir Malaniuk, from a 1994 tournament, shows the very different ways this variation can develop. As in the first game, Morozevich gets good piece pressure against the White center, but this time, he has to surrender both bishops in the first eight moves.